Attorney:
Grace Kim
April 21, 2021
I recently wrote an article (NHK-Fintiv Rule Challenges Look Futile at Federal Circuit) about a Federal Circuit decision that dismissed Mylan’s appeal of a PTAB decision that denied institution of an IPR. The Federal Circuit concluded that although judicial review is available by petition for mandamus and the Federal Circuit may consider Mylan’s request for mandamus, “there is no reviewability of the Director’s exercise of his discretion to deny institution except for colorable constitutional claims.” Mylan Laboratories Ltd. v. Janssen Pharmaceutica. N.V., No. 2021-1071, slip op. at 12 (Fed. Cir. March 12, 2021) (precedential).<... Read more
Attorney:
Daniel J. Pereira, Ph.D.
April 15, 2021
I previously wrote about a Federal Circuit Opinion that affirmed a lower court ruling that the term “half-liquid” was indefinite despite the apparent mis-translation of the original Italian term “semiliquido” https://www.lifesciencesipblog.com/indefiniteness-bad-translation-lack-of-definition-or-both. On March 1, 2021, the losing party (IBSA Institut Biochimique, S.A., Altergon, S.A., IBSA Pharma Inc.) filed a petition for writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court and so I thought it would be interesting to take another look at this case. Indeed, the petitioner presented a novel question for review of the lower courts’ decision of indefiniteness of the term at issue. The question presented in the petition is:<... Read more
Attorney:
Grace Kim
April 6, 2021
The NHK-Fintiv rule allows the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) to deny institution of an inter partes review petition based on the progress of a parallel U.S. district court proceeding of the same patent. The rule was established under former USPTO director Andrei Iancu in 2018, in NHK Spring v. Intri-Plex., No. IPR2018-00752, Paper 8 (PTAB Sept. 12, 2018) (precedential). As a result of the restrictions opposed by the NHK-Fintiv Rule, many petitioners have been facing increasing challenges in seeking review at the PTAB for patents where there is a parallel district court proceeding.<... Read more
Attorney:
Marina I. Miller, Ph.D.
March 8, 2021
Torrent Pharmaceuticals and Indoco Remedies Ltd. (Defendant-Appellant) appealed from the district court’s final judgment on Takeda’s (Plaintiffs-Appellees) invalidity challenges to claims 4 and 12 of U.S. Patent No. 7,807,689, owned by Takeda. In a non-precedential opinion, the Federal Circuit (“the Court”) affirmed the district court’s final judgment that Torrent and Indoco had failed to prove that the claims asserted by Takeda were invalid for statutory obviousness or non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting.<... Read more
February 12, 2021
On January 19, 2021, the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari to hear the Idenix Pharmaceuticals LLC v. Gilead Sciences Inc. case (941 F.3d 1149 (Fed. Cir. 2019)). In the underlying district court litigation, the jury found the Idenix patents were infringed, awarding it $2.5 billion in damages. But, the district court overturned the verdict and granted judgement as a matter of law finding the patents invalid for lack of enablement, and the Federal Circuit affirmed. To revive its damages claim, Idenix filed a petition to reverse the Federal Circuit's decision. The petition addressed whether a genus claim is not enabled if it encompasses a large number of compounds or whether, as the Supreme Court has previously recognized, enablement is a context-specific jury question (as well as a related written description issue that will not be discussed further).... Read more
Attorney:
Richard D. Kelly
February 10, 2021
On Tuesday the Federal Circuit vacated its decision in GlaxoSmithKline LLC. V. Teva Parma., USA, Inc., 976 F.3d 1347 (Fed. Cir. 2020) in response to GSK’s request for rehearing en banc. In vacating the decision and deciding to rehear the case, the panel limited the rehearing to Teva’s question in its en banc petition as “whether there was substantial evidence to support the jury’s verdict of induced infringement.”<... Read more
Attorney:
Daniel J. Pereira, Ph.D.
February 4, 2021
For practitioners at the USPTO, the reversal of a 101 rejection in Ex parte Patil (PTAB January 7, 2021), APJs Grimes, Scneider and Valek, in Appeal 2020-002775 should be interesting if not provide some light on the dance floor for doing the two-step with the USPTO.
The invention focused on assessing genetic variability with a system including databases and processors and as recited in Claim 27 U.S. 15/169,498:<... Read more
Attorney:
Marina I. Miller, Ph.D.
February 1, 2021
The USPTO proposes to modify the rules of practice when certain types of patent applicants and patentees may obtain or enforce a second patent for an invention that is similar (i.e., patentably indistinct) to a first patent. Generally, an application for a second patent covering a similar invention would be rejected. The proposed rule change is limited to the situation where owners of the first and second patents or patent applications are different but have an agreement to conduct research together (i.e., a joint research agreement or JRA). The proposed rule change would increase the ability to file a terminal disclaimer (TD) that ties the rights of a second patent to the first patent. The proposed rule change intends to expand when a TD can be filed in the JRA situation by eliminating the requirement that the second patent or patent application be filed later than the first patent or patent application. The USPTO also proposes to amend the rules to explicitly state existing practices in the rules regarding when certain affidavits and declarations, as well as TDs, may be filed.<... Read more
Attorney:
Daniel J. Pereira, Ph.D.
December 4, 2020
The meaning and scope of the term “about,” which was used to modify numerical ranges in patent claims was a central issue in Par Pharmaceutical, Inv v. Hospira (Fed. Cir. November 23, 2020). The two patents at issue (U.S. Patent Nos. 9,119,876 and 9,295,657) pertain to Par’s Adrenalin® products and methods using epinephrine and the case arose from Hospira’s ANDA to make and market the generic of Par’s product, which as one might expect caused Par to file suit against Hospira for patent infringement under 35 USC 271(e).<... Read more
Attorney:
Marina I. Miller, Ph.D.
October 16, 2020
This is a consolidated appeal from two Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) decisions in inter partes reviews (“IPRs”) of U.S. Patent 8,679,487 (“the ’487 patent”), owned by Immunex Corp. (“Immunex”). Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC, Genzyme Corp., and Regeneron Pharmaceuti-cals, Inc. (“Sanofi”) challenged the ’487 patent. The Board invalidated all challenged claims in IPR 2017-01884. Immunex appealed, contesting the construction of the claim term “human antibodies.” The Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“the Court”) agreed with the Board’s claim construction and affirmed the invalidity decision.<... Read more